Sunday, July 5, 2009

Welcome back to Challengeville. For those of you who have been following along from the start, I apologize for the long break in updates here. This round took me far longer to play than I'd thought it would, largely due to time constraints on how much I was able to play Sims 2 during the last few months. That, and University just takes forever when you're running this many sims through, but I probably don't need to tell some of you that. I can't even begin to imagine how those of you who've run 50-70 or more through at a time managed it without going totally insane. But, I did finish it at long last, though honestly the last few semesters for most of them were very rushed, and I admittedly was cheating heavily with grades and semester timers to get them all done and graduated as my patience for playing University was wearing very thin by then..lol. And after all that time spent playing, This isn't going to be much more than a bare-bones facts update about them all, with a few anecdotes thrown in here and there for those that actually managed to do something interesting while at Uni. I'm not presenting them in the order I played them, but in the order that I think will make the most sense for telling the whole story. And so, without further ado, I'll introduce you to the first house.

Allegra is a first semester freshman when you first load this lot. I can't remember if she already had the Biology major or if I changed it to better suit her LTW. Her secondary aspiration, and that of all of the others in this update, was rolled for, using the standard prosperity chart. Besides the achievements listed above, she also managed to max her Fitness enthusiasm and get her plaque for that. She might also have gotten the plaque for Arts & Crafts from spending a lot of time painting in her later semesters, but I don't remember if she got that far with it or not. As with all of the others except the Tri-Var girls, I used ACR to randomly determine gender preferences, and it decided that Allegra likes women. I made a few attempts to find her a future partner while she was in university, and came up with one possibility for her. She met her through a gypsy date, which turned out to be only an OK date, but afterwards they decided they were more into each other than they first thought they were.

I haven't yet decided if I'll pair them up or not. I may just have Allegra stay single, and either remain childless, adopt, or boolprop her an "in vitro" baby with someone. She did eventually graduate, and moved out into an apartment in town.

Martin is also a first semester freshman when you load the lot. And overall he did very little of interest through most of his college career, except skill. He didn't make it to fulfilling his LTW yet, but he made a very good start on it with at least 4, possibly 5, of his skills maxed out. On the romance front, he and Jane did have a thing going between them for the first several semesters of play, and I'd been intending to pair them up together after college, but then about halfway through her final semester (his 2nd sophomore semester), he met Suzie Santander, one of the cheerleaders, who is a 3-bolt match for him. I decided the 3-bolt match should take precedence, and so dropped my plans for him and Jane. There wasn't any actual breakup in-game between them, but she did graduate shortly thereafter, which largely ended their affair. Once he'd graduated, he moved out to an apartment, invited Suzie over, then asked her to move in with him, which prompted her to graduate and grow up without my ever having had to play her. Here are their graduation/growing up pics.

I'm a bit leery of how this household will go, because previous experience with playing a cheerleader that was made playable and grew up showed me that they never stop being cheerleaders. And it gets most annoying. We shall see though...hopefully one of the hacks I have from MATY will prevent that.

Jane starts out as a first semester Junior. And though it was very tempting to change her annoying LTW, I decided I'd leave it and give it a go. Being unsure about how having pets at university would work, however, she didn't start work on it until after she graduated. Overall Jane was fairly unremarkable in college. As noted above, she had a thing going with Martin for most of her time there, but then halfway through her last semester he met someone else, and that left her without a prospective mate going into her adulthood. She is the only one of the three of them that didn't get the Greek House achievement, because it wasn't until after she'd graduated that I decided to have Allegra and Martin join the Freshman Houeshold's Greek House. Here is her graduation picture - and no, I don't know what's up with the medieval gown.

Jane moved into an apartment, and in order to preserve the age gap between her and the others, I did play her there for 4 sim days, the equivalent (in my mind at least) of the 4 semesters the other two had left to go. The story of her first few days of adulthood actually turned out fairly interesting, so I've made a separate post about it to give it the space it deserves. You can read about it here.

Before we move on here, I'll show you one last shot...a composite shot of their various Secret Society abductions. Sorry it's so dark, but it's hard to get good shots of something that only happens at night.

That's about all I have for general pics from this lot. They were a pretty boring routine of skilling and studying for the most part.

This household was far more interesting to play overall given the personalities of the girls that lived here. I spent a lot of time dating, and doing outings with them, though didn't really take pictures of it all. This is the only household that I didn't use ACR to randomize gender preferences, and I decided that they all like men. Future mates were largely determined via having them look into TwoJeff's' crystal ball. Even though they're already in a Greek House starting off, I still counted it among their college achievements. I'll lead off here with the composite Secret Society abductions picture, then introduce you to the gals individually.

Brittany is a Sophomore starting off, and unlike with Jane, I did use the Sim Blender to change her LTW, which originally was the 20 Pet Best Friends one. I really didn't want to mess with that one. I'd installed a hack from MATY that enables university-related career LTWs, and was kind of pleased when it rolled one of those for her. Should be more interesting than having yet another mayor or business tycoon, or any of the other sorts of Popularity career LTWs. She was quite the social butterfly during college, and while I could probably have found her a mate the ordinary way, I'd already had her gaze into the crystal ball and it found Bruce Rauscher for her. He's already an adult, but that didn't stop them from starting up their romance. During one of their dates, she rolled the want to get engaged to him, so I went for it. She seemed to have second thoughts about it afterward though, and got a bad memory of it.

The rest of her college career was fairly uneventful, and in the course of things she graduated.

She moved out into an apartment in the same complex that Jane is living in, and I played her for a couple sim days there to preserve the age gap. There is a little bit more to tell of that than I want to put in here, so I'll tell the story of her first few days of adulthood in another post.

Heather was quite the busy gal during college, but then Romance sims often are. An early look into the crystal ball had identified Ashley Pitts from the Frat Brothers house as a good match for her, and I hooked them up together almost right away. They went on several dates in their first few semesters, woohoo'd several times, and then largely went their own ways and dated other people for the remainder of their time in college. Heather got around a lot more than Ashley did, however, and by the time she'd graduated, she'd managed to woohoo with 10 different guys, including a couple of professors. She also proved to be highly compatible with almost every guy she met. Normally 3-bolt matches are pretty rare, but Heather has ended up with no less than 5 of them, and just as many 2-bolt matches. It's the first time I've ever seen a sim be so highly compatible with so many different other sims.

Note that Blake Pennington, one of my Challengeville sims, is among her top matches. He, along with his brother Brandon, was one of her early conquests after she started dating around on Ashley. On one particular outing downtown, they were both present, and I sent her to the photo booth to woohoo with Blake to boost the outing score (and maybe to add a notch on her bedpost...I forget now if they'd woohoo'd before that or not, but I think they had). Then, I thought I'd see if I could spice things up more, so just as soon as she'd gotten out of the booth with Blake, I had her invite Brandon in there with her, and she went at it again with him. I'd expected Blake to throw a fit, but nope, he didn't seem to care at all, and he stood there with all the rest of the group cheering them on. Because of the 3-bolts she has with Blake, I debated on having her hook up with him eventually (she only has 2 bolts with Brandon, and he's already engaged to someone else), and thus earn a place in the main neighborhood (all of the Maxis playable sims are being relegated to a sub-hood I've named Townie Valley). But, since Ashley was already a playable, and since I wasn't sure I wanted to stick Blake with a who-, er, likely-to-be-unfaithful wife, I decided to just stick with the original plan of having her pair up with Ashley. Hopefully they'll be less likely to care if the other one has a roaming eye. Heather graduated into a kimono...something I'll change eventually.

I merged her into the apartment that Ashley was already living in, but haven't played her/them since then.

Finally we have Tiffany, who, while I like her, was certainly the least interesting of the three during college. Like most Knowledge sims, she was largely only interested in keeping her nose in a book, though she did maintain a reasonable social life as well. The early look into the crystal ball identified one Aiolos Robbins as a good match for her, and indeed he is. It's unknown if he has any out-of-town relatives from another planet, but Tiffany doesn't really care if he does, since they have 3-bolts for one another, and though he, like Bruce, is already an adult, she did date him periodically through college to establish and maintain a relationship with him, as well as to give her an aspiration boost when she was needing one. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them while she was in college, so we'll have to wait to meet him sometime in a future update. When she'd finished college, she managed to graduate into a fairly decent outfit, which I may or may not keep for her, depending on how the mood strikes me in the future.

She moved into an apartment in Townie Valley, but hasn't yet asked Aiolos to move in with her since I was in a hurry to get through everyone by then.

I did move a placeholder in before I moved Heather and Tiffany out to keep the lot active in case I ever want to use it again.

So, you'd think a house full of frat boys would be interesting to play, huh? Not so much with this lot. I found myself getting rather bored with them most of the time actually. ACR got to determine gender preferences here, and it decided that Castor and Joshua both prefer men. And while they weren't necessarily attracted to one another early on, eventually they were. Here they all are getting into the Secret Society:

Ashley was the liveliest one of the bunch with his Romance sim ways. Though he was far more sedate with those ways than Heather was, and only woohooed a couple other women besides Heather while he was in college. He doesn't seem to have Heather's super-compatibility either, and she is the only one he has a 3-bolt match with which is part of the reason I decided to keep them together instead of hooking her up with Blake. Ashley did a lot of studying for his future career in college, and was quite shocked while studying Mechanical to discover all the myriad uses for duct tape.

All the studying eventually stood him in good stead come graduation time, though it didn't get him a very good outfit. Not that there's anything wrong with the track suit it gave him...it's just not him.

He moved out into the same apartment complex that Jane and Brittany are living in, and I played him there for a few sim days to keep the age gap. One of the first things I did was send him downtown to get a new outfit.

He wasn't able to find any openings in the Music field during his two days of play, so he spent his time dating, and managed to get his woohoo count up to 5. Heather was subsequently moved in with him after she graduated, so only time will tell if he ever manages to match her bed count.

Joshua was a freshman starting out, and by and large was fairly uninteresting. Despite his Fortune primary aspiration, he often behaved more like a Popularity sim, wanting to make friends and best friends. Maybe he was just thinking to start networking early for the future. He eventually paired up with Castor, though theirs has been a fairly low-key romance so far. I believe they only have one bolt for each other currently, though since neither has met anyone else better, I decided to just go with the pairing. Maybe some future tweaking to satisfy turn ons/offs will help get them another bolt. When he graduated, he got a pretty dorky (IMO anyway) outfit, which was later changed.

He moved into an apartment with Castor Nova after graduation, though I didn't play them any longer than it took to get them into new clothes and sign a lease.

Castor was another ho-hum Knowledge sim throughout college. Despite his True Hobby being Arts & Crafts, he took a liking to Games early on when I had him playing chess to raise Logic. He continued to keep rolling Games related wants the rest of the time there. That's one thing that really annoys me with the hobbies...I prefer using the chess set for Logic since the telescope creates its own annoyances if they use it during the day, but the obsession with Games that it gives them is almost, if not more, annoying than having people come over to slap them all the time for being Peeping Toms (or Tomasinas as the case may be). He eventually graduated into a particularly horrible outfit, which got changed almost immediately afterwards.

As was noted above, he moved in with Joshua after college, with the household bearing his name. I figure Martin can carry on the Ruben name with Suzie. As such, it was Castor that signed the lease on their apartment.

As you can see, I'd given him a new outfit already. It's a bit on the boring side, but I don't have that many options for men unfortunately.

Finally we have Kevin. Who was pretty much as boring as most of his housemates were. As a Family sim, besides studying, Kevin was interested in finding a future wife while at college. He met several women, and dated a few of them, but had a hard time finding someone who was a really good match for him. For awhile it looked like 2-bolt Edith Suwankiri would get to become the future Mrs. Beare, but they later dropped down to just 1 bolt, so she got crossed off the list. Though, really, I still would have picked her if he hadn't found anyone else better. He did find someone else during his last semesters there though, 2-bolt match Amy Peshterianu. And she ultimately won out over Edith as my pick for Kevin's future wife. Kevin managed to get some decent clothes when he graduated, unlike the others.

He leased an apartment in the same complex with Castor and Joshua, and then invited Amy over and asked her to move in with him. She did the graduate/grow up spin, and became...a lumberjack apparently.

I don't think I took the time to change her clothes yet, but I will in the future.

As with the Tri-Var house, I moved a placeholder in before I moved them all out so that the lot would stay active and available for the future if I want to use it.

And finally we have the Freshman Household. This household is comprised of the various students that were in the sim bin for Sim State University. I originally moved them all into one of the dorms together, and played them there for a bit, but I don't really like playing in dorms, and trying to keep up with 5 of them there was quickly driving me nuts, so I ended up cheating their money and moving them out into their own house. I later had them apply for a Greek Charter in order to quickly and easily get the Greek House memory for all of them. Besides that, they all made it into the Secret Society, though I must have missed getting a picture of it for Jimmy, thus he's not shown in the composite picture here. I think he was the first one to get in.

I'll introduce you to the students here individually in a moment, but it was the group story here that was more interesting overall. In particular, I used them for Garden Club practice, both getting into it, and getting the Wishing Well. I'd re-read ASimWen's wonderful guide since the failed attempt at the Ursa Major House with Brandon Pennington awhile back, but it took me about three attempts to get the Well. The first attempt, I had Jimmy call, and while he got accepted into the club, he didn't get the well. They didn't like the unraked leaves in the back that had pretty much just fallen and I hadn't gotten a chance to rake them yet (actually I didn't even see them until too late since they were back in the opposite corner of the lot from the garden). They also thought it needed more decorative landscaping. I then had to wait awhile to try again, since first it wouldn't let me have the garden inspected again for a few days, then all the plants matured to harvest stage so I had to replant and wait for the new ones to grow enough. Then I made sure that all leaves were raked, all weeds pulled, etc., then had Jared make the call to invite the Garden Club lady over and ask for an inspection. Then made him stand on duty ready to pull any weeds that sprang up while they were there. Like Jimmy though, he didn't quite make it for the Well.

Another round of waiting, and replanting, and waiting some more...and the installation more ordinary flowers and shrubs and garden lights along with other landscaping, and eventually I was ready to try a third time. Sam got to do the honors this time, and was the one that was finally successful.

Here's an aerial view of the winning lot.

The extra flowers and such seemed to be what put it over the edge, so I guess you really do need quite a bit of them to make the cut. The little Oriental shrine statue thing was sold off after the successful inspection, and the Wishing Well was put in its spot. Although Sam happened to be the one I had make the call on the final attempt, the garden had really been a group effort, and in actuality Erik and Jared had been the ones who worked on it the most. Sam was just the most convenient one to have make the call at the time since she didn't have a class coming up soon, and hadn't yet gotten into the club.

Jared was a pretty laid-back kind of guy for the most part throughout college. He studied some, when I made him, though he wasn't overly interested in studying or skilling for the most part. He did spend a fair bit of time making friends, and working in the garden a lot to feed his Nature hobby. He dated around a little, but didn't find the right woman until his later semesters, when the crystal ball finally found Cara Kim for him. It's only a 2-bolt match I think, but it was the best one he had going, so she'll be the lucky one to make it out of towniedom to marry him eventually. Here he is at graduation, managing to get an OK outfit, though it'll probably get changed because I hate that sweater it put him in.

I was in a RL time crunch the evening I finally got them all graduated and moved out, so I didn't yet get him moved in anywhere, though he'll be getting an apartment in Townie Valley like the others, and will ask Cara to move in with him when he does.

Erik was about as non-descript as Jared was thorugh college. His secondary aspiration of Pleasure tended to dominate his wishes, along with Nature-related wishes since I also had him tending the garden a lot with Jared. I think both of them managed to get their gold badges in Gardening while in college, which tells you how much they were doing there. Like Jared, Erik dated around a little, but eventually met Ichelle Woodrow, a 3-bolt match. It was a low-key romance during college, but should prove to be a good pairing eventually. Here he is at graduation:

He moved into an apartment in Townie Valley, then invited Ichelle over and asked her to move in. She got a very practical looking outfit when she grew up.

I'm not really sure why the Nature lady was there. I was in such a hurry to get people moved in that night that I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on with them outside of the few tasks I needed them to accomplish before I moved on to the next one. So, I suppose he might have been birdwatching or something and it put him over the edge for getting a plaque (I'm fairly certain he'd gotten the membership card a long while back). I'll have to check that whenever I play him next.

The thing I remember most about Sam was that she was a pretty busy gal in college. And by "busy" I mean you'd think she was a Romance sim the way she kept hopping into bed with guys, mostly her roommates. I think Jared is the only one of the guys she didn't sleep with at some point, and she bedded the others several times apiece I believe. All at the instigation of ACR...I never directed her to go to bed with any of them except Jimmy. Jimmy is the one I'd picked to match her up with, since they have 2 bolts for each other, though she has 2 bolts with Ty and Erik as well. But since they both had better matches, and Jimmy didn't, he's the one I chose for her. They had a rocky romance in college though, mainly because of the way she kept fooling around with the others. He caught her flirting with Erik once, and it made him furious with her for a long while. They eventually patched it up between them, though, and at the end were very much in love again. Funny thing is, neither Erik or Ty ever seemed to care if she was flirting with or sleeping with one of the others, and I'm pretty certain there were several opportunities for them to have caught her "cheating" if they were going to care about it. I guess the game though Sam was going hiking right after graduation, given the outfit it put her in:

I didn't get a chance to change her into something else yet, as she and Jimmy were one of the few that I didn't get moved into an apartment due to lack of time that evening.

Jimmy really lived up to his Popularity aspiration throughout college, always wanting to meet new people and be friends and best friends with them. He was an easy one to get into the Secret Society and one of the first of all of the sims in this round to get the Big Sim on Campus memory.Aside from that, there's not really much to tell about him aside from his on again-off again-on again romance with Sam that I detailed above. At graduation, he went from the nerdy-preppy sweater over untucked shirt to a retro disco look.

Needless to say, he'll be getting different clothing at the first opportunity.

And last but not least, we have Ty. Who...really wasn't any more noteworthy than most of the others in this house unfortunately. The Popularity/Pleasure combo meant he wasn't much interested in classes or schoolwork, but I made him do them anyway. And aside from his casual friends-with-benefits relationship with Sam, he didn't have much luck in the romance arena for awhile. He did eventually find Alexis Glass, however, via the crystal ball. It's not necessarily a match made in heaven (only 2 bolts I think), but it was good enough that he apparently rolled the want to get engaged to her during one of their dates, and apparently I indulged him in it.

I actually had completely forgotten that he'd gotten engaged to her until I was going through the pictures later on. I just hope she cleans up to look a bit better once I can get her out of that tennis dress and fix her hair and makeup. Ty's going to need some wardrobe help in the future as well, because apparently they gave him a shirt that's too small for him when he graduated.

Ty is another one that I didn't get moved in anywhere yet, though he will be getting an apartment with Alexis just like all the others.

A placeholder was moved in before the 5 of them moved out so the lot will be available. I especially wasn't about to "lose" this lot after all the trouble I went to in order to get the Wishing Well for it. Most likely this will be the main Greek House that any future Maxis playables will use when they come to college.

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And that about wraps it up for this round. I did spend just a short bit of time with Blake Pennington in the midst of playing through all of these houses, and got him accepted into, and moved into the Ursa Major House Greek House that his brother Brandon started with Skip Roper and Anne Chovie. I then finally got them moved out of college and into houses back in Challengeville. Or at least...Skip & Viola and Brandon & Allison got houses. Anne was moved into an apartment by herself for now. I'll wait to show their pictures when I get to their lots in the rotation, however. My playlist is a bit of a mess at the moment, but I think their collective turns will be up after about 4 more lots. Unless I decide to play some of the other Maxis playables from Bluewater and the sim bin first. I'm just so very glad that I won't have to play University again for awhile.

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comments:

"Aiolos Robbins" Lemme see here now...hummm...He may be a long distant cousin, would halfta see if he has the golden eyes and skin..yah...LOL! How funny is that. I didn't know there were really Robbinses in the Maxis game! Otherwise, you are playing Maxis characters I didn't even know existed. I will have to take a look in the Sim Bin. heh

You are a brave woman for playing all the maxis playables through college. I just leave them in their respective residences and if they meet my playables they have a chance to become playable (I have Ms. Upsnott in my hood too, she's a fun little witch to play :) )Although I might make the binned kids townies at some point. I look forward to seeing how these kids do in their adult lives!

I had originally planned to just treat them like townies and only pull them in if one of my sims took a liking to them. Then I got the notion to actually play them. If I had it to do over I'd probably just stick to the original plan.